Jurisdiction — the authority of a state's criminal courts to prescribe, prosecute and punish — is classified on five bases (learn the Latin/labels):
5.1 Territorial Jurisdiction
The foundational principle: a state may punish crimes committed within its territory — land, territorial waters and airspace, and (by fiction/extension) Nepali ships and aircraft. The Muluki Criminal Code, 2074 applies, in general terms, to offences committed within Nepal. Within the state, further tiers distribute competence (court levels; place of commission — the Criminal Procedure Code's venue rules: ordinarily where the offence occurred or the accused resides/is found). The objective territorial principle extends jurisdiction where only the result occurs in the state (a bullet fired across the border killing within); the subjective territorial principle covers acts begun within even if completed abroad.
5.2 Extra-territorial Jurisdiction
Exceptions where the state punishes crimes beyond its borders:
• Protective principle: offences directed against the state's security, currency, or vital interests even if committed abroad by foreigners (treason, counterfeiting, espionage-type offences);
The syllabus prescribes a case for this section; its citation and holding are withheld until verified.
• Passive personality principle: jurisdiction over crimes against one's nationals abroad (increasingly invoked for terrorism and piracy-era harms; contested historically, accepted in modern instruments);
• Effects doctrine: jurisdiction over foreign conduct with substantial effects within the territory (competition and transnational crime practice).
5.3 Personal Jurisdiction
The personality principles in their two faces — active (over nationals as offenders) and passive (over victims as the connecting link).
The syllabus prescribes a case for this section; its citation and holding are withheld until verified.
5.4 Universal Jurisdiction
The boldest principle: certain crimes are so grave — piracy, genocide, war crimes, crimesagainst humanity, torture, slavery — that any state may try the offender, regardless of where committed, by whom, against whom, and whether the state has any link at all. Rationale: these are crimes against the international community as such (hostis humani generis — the enemy of all humankind, piracy's old label). Exemplars: the Eichmann trial (Israel, 1961 — Nazi crimes, no territorial link); the Pinochet litigation (UK/House of Lords, 1998–99 — torture and the UN Convention against Torture); Belgium's erstwhile universal-jurisdiction statute; the special tribunals (ICTY/ICTR) and the ICC (whose jurisdiction, strictly, is treaty-based and complementary rather than universal). Nepal, party to the genocide and torture conventions, has theoretically assumed universality obligations for torture (aut dedere aut judicare — extradite or prosecute), though prosecuting practice and implementing legislation remain the test. For the exam: define the principle, name the crime list, cite Eichmann and Pinochet, note the complementarity-with-ICC distinction.